You know, I have to admit you're probably right in that much of my conclusions are biased by my original familiarity with the commercial software. Having said that, I don't think that accounts for all of my experience. For example, it's hard to argue against the fact that MATLAB code runs orders of magnitude faster than Octave code. Or that Word produces nicer looking equations or figures than OO. (Ok, maybe that's still subjective.) Seriously, if OSS was generally as good as commercial, I wouldn't know what to do with myself. How could I justify working in a field where better results are obtained by NOT paying people to work?
I agree that in many cases OSS is better, or good enough to justify not paying for commercial. But I don't think it's too wierd to imagine that there isn't SOMETHING to the idea that paying people to develop for a platform with 90% market share will often result in better product than not paying people to develop for one with a tiny share.
For a while I got caught up in the heady idealogy of linux and OSS, but after a while I just sort of realized that the reality is often disappointing and the hype a bit slanted. For example, people cite FF as this amazing triumph of OSS over MS. (Which is debatable, itself.) Well, the vast majority of FF is a commercial product (the guts of Netscape). I highly doubt FF could be developed from the ground up in a reasonable amount of time as an OSS. The same is true of OO, which was a gift from Sun. The vast majority of what we call Linux is really GNU, and has been in development since the 70s. Sure, there are huge successes, like GIMP and TeX, but the reality is much more complex than the cheerleaders around here would like to admit.
How is this any different from Windows developers choosing to use WxWindows or OWL rather than MFC or.NET? They're different tools, but the end-user doesn't care.
I see your point, but I don't think it's totally analogous. MFC and.NET and Qt/WIN still target the same underlying graphics API, for one, and they have a much more consistent user experience between them. Is KDE going to use Cairo? I guess KDE and GNOME are getting better about interop, but most people I know pick one or the other and tend to stick with apps written for one.
The stuff you're doing with GIMP sounds really cool, and I agree that it's probably impossible with Photoshop.
So popularity == quality? That is *often* not the case.
No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm not even talking about the quality of Windows. I'm saying that since Windows is popular it attracts developer attention. This whole time all I've been talking about is apps. I hate Windows. But I love the great stuff written for it, much of which is not available or inferior on linux. I really think MS was very smart about one thing: attacting developers and making life relatively easy for them. They did this through ruthless market share tactics, for one, but they've also done it through excellent developer support programs and software.
Academic site licenses. But even when I graduate, I would argue that I couldn't afford NOT to own them. There is no adequate substitute for MATLAB, Mathematica or Photoshop/Illustrator in OSS. And I wouldn't work at a place that was so shortsighted as to insist I only use free software regardless of the situation.
Seriously, what is the point of spending over $100,000 a year on a person after benefits (I'm a student, so this is not about me!) and then not being willing to outfit him* with a measly $500 software package that will make him even slightly more productive and effective? I assure you the software pays for itself. That's one thing MS is right about: whether or not you prefer linux or windows, or want to use both, it's *not* an economic argument. Spending $130 per person to outfit them with windows is petty fracking cash.
*I use the pronoun 'him' in the gender neutral sense.
I'm going to turn this around on you. Why limit yourself with Windows? Why limit yourself to an operating system that makes it so messy to locate and install new software? And of course why put up with viruses and spyware?
I didn't state this very clearly, but I did imply it: I dual boot. I prefer linux all things equal. I haven't experienced viruses or spyware since upgrading to SP2 on XP, though I admit it seems like I'm just lucky. (Also, people on/. are probably out of the norm in not doing stupid things like opening executable attachments.)
As for installing software, I have NO idea what you're talking about. As lame as the registry is, at least it gives a consistent way to install software, with a central location for uninstallation scripts. Hell, at least windows apps usually HAVE uninstall scripts. For all the good things about linux, I can't fracking believe you're actually trying to cite software installation as one of them...
Point taken. To answer your question, though: I used it as an example because banks not letting people use firefox was an issue recently. I have no idea what the statistics are, though. I'm not trying to produce a sociology dissertation here! Personally, I've had bad experiences with Firefox, and I think I'm not alone based on most browser statistics I've seen. My personal belief, which I obviously can't prove, is that some people, especially around here, tend to be guided more by the way they want the world to be as much as the reality of the situation. But this place is going to be a lot less fun if we have to wait until we have hard and fast evidence before coming forth with our opinions!
Well, I admit that my post was a bit unnuanced. But my point was that people here end up using windows for a lot of stuff. How else can you explain the fact that everybody talks up linux but the web logs show huge IE usage? I wasn't saying everybody uses a computer as I do, but I don't think technical word processing and figure editing are exactly niche applications. However, I did err by not acknowedging that linux is great for programming.
The issue I have with your post is that you say, or at the very least imply, that Linux isn't good for getting any work done. That isn't true, it's just not good for as many things as Windows is.
You're absolutely right. The way I worded things was pretty glib, and I think it's why so many people responded negatively. Everybody forgot the basis of my post which was that I'm a linux user who boots windows a lot. All things equal, I'd rather use linux. Anyway, I do apologize for calling you a zealot. I think I misread the tone of your first reply.
...the usual way it works is that Linux has multiple different ways to do things until finally a way comes out that's just so much better it becomes the standard.
I don't share your optimism. I think sometimes an OS can be TOO open, and in the case of linux I fear the lack of central control over the platform will always be a problem. Whenever one thing finally converges, there's two more new competing standards that pop up for something else. Why would Adobe, for example, ever invest in developing Illustrator for linux when they have no assurance of platform stability? It's gonna be a problem when the platform that is the most in flux is also the one that is the least supported in the market.
You call it zealotry, I call it a decision to support the better way, and not give my money to a company whose practices I abhor, fully aware of the drawbacks of the choice I made and easily able to overcome them.
Actually, I wouldn't call that zealotry. I just got the impression before that you were blind to the drawbacks. And I think a lot of people here are.
I kinda wish you'd just modded me... I'm not sure how you can say I'm a zealot. My whole thesis was that most people here probably use both Windows and Linux. I switch back and forth a few times a week, and use a Mac at home. Does that sound like a zealot to you?
If your needs happen to fit perfectly within what linux offers, great. You're a richer man (literally) for it. But I think the majority of people don't fit that. Or do you think 90% market share means nothing to the people that program applications for a living? I think telling someone to take their head out of their ass for suggesting windows is often better than linux suggests a bit more emotional involvement with your computing equipment than is healthy.
So, since Windows works better than Linux for you, anyone who says Linux works better than Windows for them is a zealot?
No, that was badly spoken on my part if I implied that. I should've said anybody who insists linux ALWAYS beats windows must be a zealot. As I said, I use both regularly. Generally, I only prefer linux for programming, but I'm willing to acknowledge other uses for it.:-)
Seriously, who needs "better" than Photoshop or Illustrator? I'll happily grant that the GIMP isn't as good as Photoshop, but it's adequate for my needs (and I do quite a lot with it). You must do a lot of graphics work to justify buying Photoshop -- wait... you *did* pay for it, right?
Our lab has a site license, and I use it (mostly Illustrator, actually) for papers. If you're touching up family photos, I can see good enough and free being perfect. But why not use the best available if your professional output is involved?
Nope. I have tried it with Word, though, and that's one of the less pleasant episodes of my life.
Oh, I never said it would be pleasant! But in my experience it will still be far better than using OpenOffice (if what you want is even possible) which essentially tries to emulate Word in terms of miserable interface, but falls short in all other regards.
I notice you didn't say what Windows software you would recommend for the task.
I'd either go with Word + the upgraded equation editor from MathType, or LaTeX + Illustrator for figures. LyX is great, too. One of the nice things about Windows is that a ton of software that's available on linux is ported over, but the vice versa isn't generally true.
I don't know about MATLAB, but I've used Mathematica on Linux quite a bit, and I haven't seen any of the problems you claim.
Based on my experience, and the experience of our cluster sysadmin last week, you're lucky.
I'm supposing this is a jab against the KDE/GNOME issue. It's a dumb one, though, because developers don't have to support both.
No, that's *exactly* my point. In fact, developers generally DON'T support both. That's what I meant about a niche market being further fractioned. The small market share of linux is effectively further diminished by the KDE/GNOME split. And that's just the desktop. Have you ever seen the download page for a commercial linux app? (Obviously, that's rhetorical.) It's ridiculous, with about 10 different versions for the various kernel revs and distros.
Now, you probably don't care to modify or script your applications. That's fine. Windows works for you.
You're right, I have better things to do in most cases. And unless you're paid minumum wage, my guess is you do, too. Anyway, that's not really my point. You're not going to script GIMP into PhotoShop, or app x into whatever your favorite app y is. Given that Windows has a huge market share advantage, I think often times the best app for a given job is on windows. I don't think that's a very radical statement, though around here maybe it is.
I love how you gloss over the fact that of the three things you do with a computer in a day, one of them is connect to a windows machine remotely. It sounds like you're using your computer as a thin client. Not exactly what I was talking about, but I grant you it is an application for which exclusive use of linux is totally reasonable.
Anyway, Firefox works sufficiently well with all my banking sites, too. Why do people take rhetorical devices so literally around here? Like five people have pointed out that their bank works fine. My point was that a lot of websites have problems with firefox. (Note the way I worded that, because I know firefox is not the problem.) But a problem is a problem, and i likes my web pages rendered as the website author intended, not as the standards people do.
Why is it that everybody who claims linux works "well enough" for exclusive use can't seem to get it together to finish their web sites? I know there must be web authoring software available on linux that will do the job well enough. Perhaps there is a pattern here...
But you can cram that MS Office superiority bullshit up your ass. MS Word only has a few relatively obscure exclusive features that few people care about (with the exception of a few languages they support), and these are more then outweighed by the advantages OpenOffice.org brings to the table. OpenOffice is the king of formats. OpenOffice is actually _better_ than MS Office when it comes to opening old Word/Excel format documents, and the OpenDocument format is superior in every way to MS's formats.
I'm not talking about features or document formats. I'm talking about the visual quality of document you're able to produce. Have you ever USED a word processor to produce something that's going to have to be published, or do you just sit around opening and closing files?
Windows still has its areas where it is very clearly superior, but it's simply FUD to claim that it's superior in EVERY area.
I didn't mean to imply it was. I should've been more clear: it's not about the superiority of the os, but about the apps available for a given task. Sometimes Windows wins, sometimes Linux does.
Anyway, the fact that you agree that PS is better than GIMP is really at the heart of what I'm talking about. Unless you're a fool guided by ideology, you'll keep windows around for when you want to use PS, right? And you'll use Linux for other things. Maybe, if you're rich, you'll have a Mac, too. Monogamy is nothing you should ever submit to unless you have to...
CrossOver and a Windows partition are equivalent from the point of view of my original argument, I think. My point is you don't tie yourself to one platform.
I think you misunderstood my post. I'm not saying linux is inherently worse. I'm saying the reality doesn't match the theory, always. CUPS, for example: a lot of apps don't use it. I know that's not a fault of linux, but it's the reality. It's irrelevant you had a great experience the other day. All too often with linux people run into problems with programs that *don't* support these nifty standards that are supposed to make linux as easy as windows. Linux is drowning in standards, which may be part of the problem.
Yeah, OpenOffice works fine for a lot of things. But it's not as good as Word, sadly enough, when it comes to complex documents. I've tried both recently. Have you? What do you owe to linux that you're willing to go with "just fine"?
This seems a common theme in all the responses I got from my original post. Everybody says "well, X works fine for me on linux." Why are you settling for good enough? If there's something better on Windows, why not suck up your pride and use it? Do you care more about OSS politics or the quality of your work?
Yeah, I know that in theory linux can do anything a windows or mac box can. Hell, Turing tells you that! I'm asking about what works best in practice. And you're you're kidding yourself if you say that one OS always works better than another.
Ah, the arguments of the linux faithful. Look, I connected a single printer! In fact, I've done it N times! Yeah, great. That's not the same as saying setting up a printer under linux works as well, on average, as it does on windows or mac. In my experience, it doesn't. Plus, just because CUPS exists doesn't mean all apps use it. I don't care about theory, in practice printing is a mess on linux for historical reasons.
In fact, the same can be said of everything else you cited as "evidence". I'm not saying GIMP doesn't exist. I'm saying it's not as good as PhotoShop. Did I hear you say otherwise? And you say your documents "work fine". Good for you. Nice to see your standards are so high.
I use both mac, linux and windows regularly. When was the last time you used both word and openoffice? When was the last time you did a drawing in something other than gimp? I'm not sure it's me who's uninformed. Given that I'm not a zealot for either side, I use windows, linux and mac quite often, and try applications on all three. I think that makes me unbiased and perhaps more informed than most people around here. I'm not sure why i bother with these arguments. The reality distortion around here is remarkable. It's like you people have your egos tied up in the operating system you use.
Are you a programmer? I can see how dev work would be fine on linux, without needing any windows-only apps. But if you ever need to do production quality graphics or page layout, I just don't see how you can justify using linux only. Do you know how many publications use linux? I'm seriously asking. My guess is that it's zero.
Also, why would you intentionally limit yourself? Are you saying that every single application for linux is better than the windows counterpart? Why not have the option of usign the best app for the job?
Yeah, based on your website, I'd say you get a shitload done... Ok, cheap shot. But seriously, what have you found for linux that is better than illustrator or photoshop? If you say GIMP or Inkscape I've already won. Have you ever tried to layout a technical paper using OpenOffice, including equations and figures? I doubt it. Word sucks in so many ways, but it actually produces good output, and full-featured equation editors are available. You can cite LaTeX in the linux camp, but good luck doing high quality figures for it without a Windows box. MATLAB and Mathematica both look like shit on linux, with font (and sometimes keyboard) issues everywhere. In fact, nothing makes linux look worse than comparing software developed for both windows and linux.
I agree that technically linux is far superior. In theory, linux is great. But in the real world what matters is applications. Linux may have potential over Windows, but the reality is the mess of standards on linux makes it hard to develop for, and it diverts efforts into factions. Linux is a niche market with it's own niches. Imagine how much less support the Mac would get if its paltry market share were further split between two competing desktop APIs.
Anyway, good luck with your zealotry and all that. I'll keep using what works *best*, and if that becomes linux, I'll happily join you in ridding my drive of its windows partition.
They could release Vista prematurely but now we wait until 2007. And if you hate Windows, like I do, why do you care? We're still going to be using Linux anyways.
They care because everybody here who talks up linux has a dirty little secret: their windows partition. The one they use when they need to get stuff done, like use photoshop or illustrator, or use a word processor that actually works, or a browser that works with their bank's website (granted, not fair, but true), or a play a game other than gnu chess, or print to that fancy new color laserjet down the hall.
Ok mods, have at it, but before you do look deep inside your hard drives and you'll see that what I say is true!:-)
There's just so much stupid in your post, I had to respond twice. If you can't figure out the difference between municipal water and broadband internet, please never vote. Roads, water, military: all things that are shared resources that people MUST compromise on. We can't really have multiple water supplies, now can we? Also, note that people PAY for their water usage. Anyway, internet access is a personal issue, not a community asset. What the dems propose is the typical government vote buy. This works for them since their base is largely a mix of people who essentially pay no taxes (did you know that half the country pays for the other half?) and neurotic, insecure white people who mistake "progressive" politics for personal virtue. Nowhere in there is a coherent philosophy for why we have government, so the dems will just keep solving our problems with government until government is our biggest problem.
Don't get me started on the republicans, either...
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Please. Read your own links! Ten out of Eleven $20 bills in Miami turned out to have trace amounts of cocaine on them. Hell 10 out of 11 of anything in Miami will probably test positive for dozens of illegal substances. You can probably get Robert Downey Jr.'s DNA off of half the inanimate objects in that city.
Not sure what it says about you, then, that you appear confused by the ideas of a libertarian. Lockheed Martin would answer to whomever hired them. In the case of my example, that would be the government and so the same Senate committe would have oversight. The new difference is that if LM fucks up, they get replaced. And if they are inefficient, they lose profit. And they can fire people. Etc.
Anyway, in the world outside your ass, where most of us have our heads, government oversight never seems to work as well as your theory suggests. Which is why libertarians want to solve the problem by eliminating as many government responsibilities as possible. We think, in the end, you'll get more out of government where it really counts, and a lot of the problems big government is supposed to solve but doesn't (i.e. poverty) will actually be reduced by the government not trying to solve them. For example, imagine how many elderly wouldn't need to suckle from the government teat during retirement if they'd been able to keep some of the 50% of their incomes the government (at all levels) took during their working years. It's counter intuitive (and it may even be wrong) but the world often works that way. So you can continue to be an asshole and ridicule the notion with strawman arguments and hit me with ad hominum insults, or you can give it some thought and respond with something intelligent. Still waiting for the latter.
What it has to do with the CIA is that perhaps it's foolish to have such an unbelievable extensive "intelligence" complex sucking tax money like there's no tomorrow if, as the OP pointed out, government agencies are so prone to incompetence. Nowhere did I suggest that intelligence could be done privately, though now that you bring it up, it may not be a bad idea. Before you go "WTF"ing your ass off, consider the fact that the private sector already handles very sensitive intelligence and military assets as it is. Remember, the military and CIA don't actualy make a damn thing. Everything they use is made by private companies. Lockheed Martin, for one, has a hell of a lot more "government secrets" than the actual government has.
So, why not contract out even more of the CIA's work to Lockheed Martin? Oh, I know, because Lockheed Martin can't kill people, and all the other stuff we get from our tremendously publically accountable government. Your ideas sound wonderful, but I'm afraid they fly in the face of all human experience. The only way to keep government in check is to keep it small.
The bigger our government gets, the more it worries me, and it should worry you, too. People always seem shocked when government grows for "good" reasons--the ones you seem to support--and then invariably abuses its newfound power in short order, all assurances of "public oversight" notwithstanding. We're just a mere spot on the historical record with our little experiment, and only 230 years into it do-good statists are already fucking it up, just as most of the founding fathers predicted we probably would.
Anyway, I'm not sure why you're so freaked out by privitizing things. You're a fool if you think government is any easier to keep in line than a company, or any more transparent. And I'm not suggesting we privitize everything. I'm more saying we should eliminate a lot of what we expect the government to do, because it does such a shoddy job at it. The government seems a lot better at getting the world to want to destoy us than it is at preventing them from doing it.
(I do totally agree with you about the importance of law and the culture of law. But I think we can both agree that most of the what the government does today has nothing to do with the rule of law protecting property, life and liberty.)
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I agree that in many cases OSS is better, or good enough to justify not paying for commercial. But I don't think it's too wierd to imagine that there isn't SOMETHING to the idea that paying people to develop for a platform with 90% market share will often result in better product than not paying people to develop for one with a tiny share.
For a while I got caught up in the heady idealogy of linux and OSS, but after a while I just sort of realized that the reality is often disappointing and the hype a bit slanted. For example, people cite FF as this amazing triumph of OSS over MS. (Which is debatable, itself.) Well, the vast majority of FF is a commercial product (the guts of Netscape). I highly doubt FF could be developed from the ground up in a reasonable amount of time as an OSS. The same is true of OO, which was a gift from Sun. The vast majority of what we call Linux is really GNU, and has been in development since the 70s. Sure, there are huge successes, like GIMP and TeX, but the reality is much more complex than the cheerleaders around here would like to admit.
I see your point, but I don't think it's totally analogous. MFC and .NET and Qt/WIN still target the same underlying graphics API, for one, and they have a much more consistent user experience between them. Is KDE going to use Cairo? I guess KDE and GNOME are getting better about interop, but most people I know pick one or the other and tend to stick with apps written for one.
The stuff you're doing with GIMP sounds really cool, and I agree that it's probably impossible with Photoshop.
So popularity == quality? That is *often* not the case.
No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm not even talking about the quality of Windows. I'm saying that since Windows is popular it attracts developer attention. This whole time all I've been talking about is apps. I hate Windows. But I love the great stuff written for it, much of which is not available or inferior on linux. I really think MS was very smart about one thing: attacting developers and making life relatively easy for them. They did this through ruthless market share tactics, for one, but they've also done it through excellent developer support programs and software.
Then why bother to register your own domain? You know, there are some nice commercial apps that will let you put of a decent site within hours... :-)
Seriously, what is the point of spending over $100,000 a year on a person after benefits (I'm a student, so this is not about me!) and then not being willing to outfit him* with a measly $500 software package that will make him even slightly more productive and effective? I assure you the software pays for itself. That's one thing MS is right about: whether or not you prefer linux or windows, or want to use both, it's *not* an economic argument. Spending $130 per person to outfit them with windows is petty fracking cash.
*I use the pronoun 'him' in the gender neutral sense.
I didn't state this very clearly, but I did imply it: I dual boot. I prefer linux all things equal. I haven't experienced viruses or spyware since upgrading to SP2 on XP, though I admit it seems like I'm just lucky. (Also, people on /. are probably out of the norm in not doing stupid things like opening executable attachments.)
As for installing software, I have NO idea what you're talking about. As lame as the registry is, at least it gives a consistent way to install software, with a central location for uninstallation scripts. Hell, at least windows apps usually HAVE uninstall scripts. For all the good things about linux, I can't fracking believe you're actually trying to cite software installation as one of them...
Point taken. To answer your question, though: I used it as an example because banks not letting people use firefox was an issue recently. I have no idea what the statistics are, though. I'm not trying to produce a sociology dissertation here! Personally, I've had bad experiences with Firefox, and I think I'm not alone based on most browser statistics I've seen. My personal belief, which I obviously can't prove, is that some people, especially around here, tend to be guided more by the way they want the world to be as much as the reality of the situation. But this place is going to be a lot less fun if we have to wait until we have hard and fast evidence before coming forth with our opinions!
Well, I admit that my post was a bit unnuanced. But my point was that people here end up using windows for a lot of stuff. How else can you explain the fact that everybody talks up linux but the web logs show huge IE usage? I wasn't saying everybody uses a computer as I do, but I don't think technical word processing and figure editing are exactly niche applications. However, I did err by not acknowedging that linux is great for programming.
You're absolutely right. The way I worded things was pretty glib, and I think it's why so many people responded negatively. Everybody forgot the basis of my post which was that I'm a linux user who boots windows a lot. All things equal, I'd rather use linux. Anyway, I do apologize for calling you a zealot. I think I misread the tone of your first reply.
I don't share your optimism. I think sometimes an OS can be TOO open, and in the case of linux I fear the lack of central control over the platform will always be a problem. Whenever one thing finally converges, there's two more new competing standards that pop up for something else. Why would Adobe, for example, ever invest in developing Illustrator for linux when they have no assurance of platform stability? It's gonna be a problem when the platform that is the most in flux is also the one that is the least supported in the market.
You call it zealotry, I call it a decision to support the better way, and not give my money to a company whose practices I abhor, fully aware of the drawbacks of the choice I made and easily able to overcome them.
Actually, I wouldn't call that zealotry. I just got the impression before that you were blind to the drawbacks. And I think a lot of people here are.
If your needs happen to fit perfectly within what linux offers, great. You're a richer man (literally) for it. But I think the majority of people don't fit that. Or do you think 90% market share means nothing to the people that program applications for a living? I think telling someone to take their head out of their ass for suggesting windows is often better than linux suggests a bit more emotional involvement with your computing equipment than is healthy.
No, that was badly spoken on my part if I implied that. I should've said anybody who insists linux ALWAYS beats windows must be a zealot. As I said, I use both regularly. Generally, I only prefer linux for programming, but I'm willing to acknowledge other uses for it. :-)
Seriously, who needs "better" than Photoshop or Illustrator? I'll happily grant that the GIMP isn't as good as Photoshop, but it's adequate for my needs (and I do quite a lot with it). You must do a lot of graphics work to justify buying Photoshop -- wait... you *did* pay for it, right?
Our lab has a site license, and I use it (mostly Illustrator, actually) for papers. If you're touching up family photos, I can see good enough and free being perfect. But why not use the best available if your professional output is involved?
Nope. I have tried it with Word, though, and that's one of the less pleasant episodes of my life.
Oh, I never said it would be pleasant! But in my experience it will still be far better than using OpenOffice (if what you want is even possible) which essentially tries to emulate Word in terms of miserable interface, but falls short in all other regards.
I notice you didn't say what Windows software you would recommend for the task.
I'd either go with Word + the upgraded equation editor from MathType, or LaTeX + Illustrator for figures. LyX is great, too. One of the nice things about Windows is that a ton of software that's available on linux is ported over, but the vice versa isn't generally true.
I don't know about MATLAB, but I've used Mathematica on Linux quite a bit, and I haven't seen any of the problems you claim.
Based on my experience, and the experience of our cluster sysadmin last week, you're lucky. I'm supposing this is a jab against the KDE/GNOME issue. It's a dumb one, though, because developers don't have to support both.
No, that's *exactly* my point. In fact, developers generally DON'T support both. That's what I meant about a niche market being further fractioned. The small market share of linux is effectively further diminished by the KDE/GNOME split. And that's just the desktop. Have you ever seen the download page for a commercial linux app? (Obviously, that's rhetorical.) It's ridiculous, with about 10 different versions for the various kernel revs and distros.
Now, you probably don't care to modify or script your applications. That's fine. Windows works for you.
You're right, I have better things to do in most cases. And unless you're paid minumum wage, my guess is you do, too. Anyway, that's not really my point. You're not going to script GIMP into PhotoShop, or app x into whatever your favorite app y is. Given that Windows has a huge market share advantage, I think often times the best app for a given job is on windows. I don't think that's a very radical statement, though around here maybe it is.
Anyway, Firefox works sufficiently well with all my banking sites, too. Why do people take rhetorical devices so literally around here? Like five people have pointed out that their bank works fine. My point was that a lot of websites have problems with firefox. (Note the way I worded that, because I know firefox is not the problem.) But a problem is a problem, and i likes my web pages rendered as the website author intended, not as the standards people do.
Why is it that everybody who claims linux works "well enough" for exclusive use can't seem to get it together to finish their web sites? I know there must be web authoring software available on linux that will do the job well enough. Perhaps there is a pattern here...
Yes, I'm aware of the outdated games you can play on linux. :-) I was being facetious when I said that all you can do is play gnu chess.
I'm not talking about features or document formats. I'm talking about the visual quality of document you're able to produce. Have you ever USED a word processor to produce something that's going to have to be published, or do you just sit around opening and closing files?
Windows still has its areas where it is very clearly superior, but it's simply FUD to claim that it's superior in EVERY area.
I didn't mean to imply it was. I should've been more clear: it's not about the superiority of the os, but about the apps available for a given task. Sometimes Windows wins, sometimes Linux does.
Anyway, the fact that you agree that PS is better than GIMP is really at the heart of what I'm talking about. Unless you're a fool guided by ideology, you'll keep windows around for when you want to use PS, right? And you'll use Linux for other things. Maybe, if you're rich, you'll have a Mac, too. Monogamy is nothing you should ever submit to unless you have to...
CrossOver and a Windows partition are equivalent from the point of view of my original argument, I think. My point is you don't tie yourself to one platform.
Yeah, OpenOffice works fine for a lot of things. But it's not as good as Word, sadly enough, when it comes to complex documents. I've tried both recently. Have you? What do you owe to linux that you're willing to go with "just fine"?
Yeah, I know that in theory linux can do anything a windows or mac box can. Hell, Turing tells you that! I'm asking about what works best in practice. And you're you're kidding yourself if you say that one OS always works better than another.
In fact, the same can be said of everything else you cited as "evidence". I'm not saying GIMP doesn't exist. I'm saying it's not as good as PhotoShop. Did I hear you say otherwise? And you say your documents "work fine". Good for you. Nice to see your standards are so high.
I use both mac, linux and windows regularly. When was the last time you used both word and openoffice? When was the last time you did a drawing in something other than gimp? I'm not sure it's me who's uninformed. Given that I'm not a zealot for either side, I use windows, linux and mac quite often, and try applications on all three. I think that makes me unbiased and perhaps more informed than most people around here. I'm not sure why i bother with these arguments. The reality distortion around here is remarkable. It's like you people have your egos tied up in the operating system you use.
Also, why would you intentionally limit yourself? Are you saying that every single application for linux is better than the windows counterpart? Why not have the option of usign the best app for the job?
I agree that technically linux is far superior. In theory, linux is great. But in the real world what matters is applications. Linux may have potential over Windows, but the reality is the mess of standards on linux makes it hard to develop for, and it diverts efforts into factions. Linux is a niche market with it's own niches. Imagine how much less support the Mac would get if its paltry market share were further split between two competing desktop APIs.
Anyway, good luck with your zealotry and all that. I'll keep using what works *best*, and if that becomes linux, I'll happily join you in ridding my drive of its windows partition.
They care because everybody here who talks up linux has a dirty little secret: their windows partition. The one they use when they need to get stuff done, like use photoshop or illustrator, or use a word processor that actually works, or a browser that works with their bank's website (granted, not fair, but true), or a play a game other than gnu chess, or print to that fancy new color laserjet down the hall.
Ok mods, have at it, but before you do look deep inside your hard drives and you'll see that what I say is true! :-)
Don't get me started on the republicans, either...
Please. Read your own links! Ten out of Eleven $20 bills in Miami turned out to have trace amounts of cocaine on them. Hell 10 out of 11 of anything in Miami will probably test positive for dozens of illegal substances. You can probably get Robert Downey Jr.'s DNA off of half the inanimate objects in that city.
Anyway, in the world outside your ass, where most of us have our heads, government oversight never seems to work as well as your theory suggests. Which is why libertarians want to solve the problem by eliminating as many government responsibilities as possible. We think, in the end, you'll get more out of government where it really counts, and a lot of the problems big government is supposed to solve but doesn't (i.e. poverty) will actually be reduced by the government not trying to solve them. For example, imagine how many elderly wouldn't need to suckle from the government teat during retirement if they'd been able to keep some of the 50% of their incomes the government (at all levels) took during their working years. It's counter intuitive (and it may even be wrong) but the world often works that way. So you can continue to be an asshole and ridicule the notion with strawman arguments and hit me with ad hominum insults, or you can give it some thought and respond with something intelligent. Still waiting for the latter.
So, why not contract out even more of the CIA's work to Lockheed Martin? Oh, I know, because Lockheed Martin can't kill people, and all the other stuff we get from our tremendously publically accountable government. Your ideas sound wonderful, but I'm afraid they fly in the face of all human experience. The only way to keep government in check is to keep it small.
The bigger our government gets, the more it worries me, and it should worry you, too. People always seem shocked when government grows for "good" reasons--the ones you seem to support--and then invariably abuses its newfound power in short order, all assurances of "public oversight" notwithstanding. We're just a mere spot on the historical record with our little experiment, and only 230 years into it do-good statists are already fucking it up, just as most of the founding fathers predicted we probably would.
Anyway, I'm not sure why you're so freaked out by privitizing things. You're a fool if you think government is any easier to keep in line than a company, or any more transparent. And I'm not suggesting we privitize everything. I'm more saying we should eliminate a lot of what we expect the government to do, because it does such a shoddy job at it. The government seems a lot better at getting the world to want to destoy us than it is at preventing them from doing it.
(I do totally agree with you about the importance of law and the culture of law. But I think we can both agree that most of the what the government does today has nothing to do with the rule of law protecting property, life and liberty.)